Diamondback Gulch with Pink Jeep Tours

 Tuesday afternoon we had booked a off road adventure with Pink Jeep Tours to Diamondback Gulch. When we booked it on Sunday, we had NO CLUE that the temperature would start to drastically drop after lunch. So...the open air jeep was a tad chilly at not quite 40 degrees and windy! So....I bundled up into my fleece, hate and mittens (thank goodness I had even brought them!), Ellie in the warmest clothes she could find, and multiple layers later, we were off on a 4 & 1/2 hour trek!

 Went past some cattle grazing....

And passed some nice rock formations everywhere....but this tour was NOT about rock formations....

It was about crossing dry creek beds,

 I don't think I would want to be anywhere near here in a flash flood!

Some interesting vegetation...unfortunately our guide wasn't too "up" on plant knowledge...

 Ellie was in the front seat saying who knows what to the guide (I figured I was dressed warmer so I would let her sit in the front so at least most of the wind was blocked). All of a sudden, the guide would see me take an interest in something and immediately STOP and make sure I had captured with my camera whatever memory I wanted to share with other people. Somehow, the conversation led to the "bizarre and remote"(to most folks that is) places

 I have been. It seems somehow that

I think she stretched the truth that I

was some sort of important travel

journalist for God knows who! I

 mean a lot of folks, like yourselves,

might (hopefully) find my site

 interesting and maybe someday

when I grow up (i.e. retire) perhaps

this can be more than a hobby.

Nevertheless, I did not find out

about these conversations until

later that evening. Whatever the case,

I was happy that I had some extra time

to enjoy the scenery and wasn't rushed!

 So, the going was slow as the terrain, was QUITE rough! Over rocks, into "ditches", then....down Diamondback Gulch. Now a gulch, is a narrow, "v" shaped ravine (normally formed by erosion), that follows that path of quickly flowing water during heavy rainfall/flash floods. At this moment, it was, thankfully, just a dry creek bed. Going down.....

 Yep...we had to cross all that....these jeeps I'm sure get beat up pretty bad over the course of the year! So bad, that they have their own shop!

 Looking back up from where we came from. I was quite please that he took this rather slow...just just for photography sake...but for the sake of every vertebrae in my back!

Looking back from the other side of the gulch.

Some ruins of the Sinagua Indians near Palatki that we would visit later!